The Catahoula News-Booster from Jonesville, Louisiana • 2

Wmm 3 I In the News Page 2 The Catahoula Nows-Booster Marrh 3 1977 Catahoula News-Booster Sum A Hanna Publisher Bill Clifton Gen Mgr RT Bunneiie Mgr Editor Stella Standiford Soc Editor Established in 1853 Joneaville La Published Every Thursday Phone 339-7242 Teams do well Old friend talked of dust storm i girls are coached by a single coach Billy Brooks who has one of the best coaching records in both divisions in the area and probably one of the best in the state Harrisonburg teams are known to be aggressive and winners But the best trait of both the Block team and Harrisonburg teams which speaks well for Catahoula schools is the sportsmanship the teams display both during regular season and in playoffs The actions of the young people while away from home in play reflect not only on their schools but their home towns Block and Harrisonburg have lived up to the sportsmanship instilled in them by their coaches Catahoula Parish should be proud of the teams from both schools Congratulations are in order for the basketball teams at Block High School and Harrisonburg High School The Block High girls advanced to the state playoffs in the Sweet Sixteen tournament being held at Lake Charles while the Harrisonburg boys and girls went into the playoffs before being defeated stopping them short of the state playoffs For the Block girls it is ironic that the last team to enter the Sweet Sixteen was coached by a lady named Spinks-Maxine Spinks-who went to the tournament with her teams in 1964 and 1968 The coach that is taking the 1977 Block girls team to the Sweet Sixteen is also named Spinks -Francis Spinks-and a distant relative by marriage The Harrisonburg boys ana By RT Bonnette For a couple of days last week I had Louisiana in my heart and Texas in my lungs as dust storms blew into our area It reminded me of the dust that blew into this area during the while Oklahoma was having big dust storms in its panhandle I was amused as I listened to some of the younger men and women talking about the dust in the air last week However last week's dust storm was small compared to the big ones of the '30's not to say it get as bad as it did then but it is doubtful The dust storms that ruined the wheat farms of the Oklahoma panhandle began soil conservation measures that should make the topsoil more secure It caused the creation of the Soil and Water Conservation districts that we have now Meanwhile it was easy to see that even with the conservation measures there is still a danger in some areas of the country losing its topsoil to other areas if the weather remains dry for a long period of time One Opinion Boles dines with Carter CIA activities By Sam Hanna successful because Boles was invited to serve on the Democratic Party's national finance committee He says he's turning it down Boles in an interview with this column said of course he was impressed with the trappings of the White House and brushing shoulders with people whose decisions affect the world But he said he was more impressed with what the new President kept repeating during the breakfast and later in a talk to the group-that President Carter wants to take the government out of business The President Boles related is directing his department heads and administration leaders to study the octopus role that government has taken with business To bring businessmen back into the fold for the Democrats Carter will have to succeed in getting government out of the businessman's hair But to accomplish that Carter will lose labor Although he was in the select first man to break bread with the new President in the White House was not a member of the congressional delegation or a ranking public official like the governor of the state He was William (Billy) Boles a lawyer-businessman from Rayville who served one term in the Louisiana Senate back when he was just old enough to shave Boles seek re-election and held a public office since but on February 21 1977 there he sat-with the President at a White House breakfast safe to assume that he had kept a hand in politics Boles along with about 20 other businessmen from around the country was invited by the President for what is popularly called input into the Carter administration in this instance input on bringing more businessmen back into the Democratic camp When Carter was running Boles served as co-chairman of a Louisiana finance committee that didn't go public with its fund-raising efforts Apparently the committee was For the past several years a group of politicians and Washington correspondents have been viewing with alarm the undercover activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and have been calling for more stringent regulations to open up the CIA activities to the American public It was with some gratification therefore that we heard President Carter say he couid find nothing wrong with CIA undercover activities in other nations when the safety of the United States was involved Moreover he has asked that the number of people who have access to secret documents be curtailed in order to cut down on leaks President Carter is taking a realistic view of CIA functions There is nothing idealistic about a spy organization-which is what the CIA is Spies have been used since long before Biblical times and are mentioned in the Bible If every nation in the world Ruining Not many years ago Americans who were on relief proud of it but opportunities today to rip-off the government are turning honest Americans into dishonest Americans Florida for example suffered financially recently when cold weather killed the crops Migrant workers were forced out of work The government stepped in declared sections of Florida as disaster areas and government aid followed But now federal investigators are turning up case after case of fraud Food stamps have been issued on the basis of fraud Congressional Gumbo Solons dodge pay raise issue conducted its foreign activities on a high plane there would be no necessity for such organization But to leave ourselves open while other nations are threading us with an espionage network really make good sense And if we have to pay heads of states for the privilege of allowing our foreign agents to work inside them-well we just have to consider that money well spent The money that goes for those payments can save American -lives and property Certainly some CIA agents have committed abuses and will continue to do so They have also made mistakes Nevertheless there is no reason to continually flagellate ourselves every time someone accuses the CIA of behavior President Carter seems to recognize the value of the CIA as a secret surveillance organization and he is to be congratulated for his outspoken words on the subject the people unemployment benefits are being paid to workers who could be working and in general parts of Florida have become a haven for people who know how to get around the rules for federal assistance Now Florida growers are unable to hire labor because the government is paying laborers not to labor In Louisiana during the 1973 flood comparable conditions existed Too much federal assistance has begun to destroy the moral fiber of the American people The loss of incentive can mean the death of a nation A News View By Lewis Morris Jr To them the free flow of information was concommilant with other a right which helped create and maintain a nation of free men But it is logical to assume our forefathers intended for responsibility to go hand in hand with the freedoms they carved for us In short they intended these freedoms to be as much a privilage as a right Most publishers have lived by this creed through the years They have endeavored to present the truth without espousing conviction because of prejudice Many however have failed for one reason or another In the latter half of the last century yellow journalism became preponderant in newspaper and magazine circles These publications sought the almighty dollar in lieu of providing the truth Truth and objectivity were vanquished in the wave of sensationalism which swept the group at the breakfast Boles says he's not bucking for a prominent role in the Democratic Party He's not seeking the reputation as man in Louisiana But Billy Boles has a talent for maintaining influence in political circles even if he did give up politics as a career after a term in the Senate when Kennon was governor So many of the prominent political figures that Boles has been associated with through the years have disappeared from the political scene but Boles keeps on going in his role behind the scenes Not many years ago Boles was aboard an airplane with several of major politicians of the moment but the plane encountered a storm and there followed a few anxious moments In humor Boles was reported to have observed that if the plane crashed the newspapers back home would give only passing mention to his fate due to the political prominence of the group he accompanied Ironically not one of them was with him when he had breakfast with the President Lindy Boggs Third District Rep David Treen and Eighth District Rep Gillis Long have been quiet too Fifth District Rep Jerry Huckaby entered a six-paragraph speech into the Congressional Record in which he blasted Congress for "not biting the and for using to avoid voting on the pay raise His speech carefully avoided a statement on how he would have voted Sixth District Rep Henson Moore was more definitive He submitted written testimony to a special House ad hoc subcommittee which was reviewing presidential pay recommendations and urged that the pay increases be stopped Seventh District Rep John Breaux gave his 5 percent 1975 congressional cost-of living pay raise back to the US Treasury This year he criticized Congress for its "lack of political backbone" in not voting on this most recent pay raise He didn't say whether he would give this year's $12875 back however The most outspoken and honest of all was Fourth District Rep Joe Waggonner know of a single member of Congress with whom talked in private who is not in favor of the Rep Wagonner wrote a constituent with whom I have talked about it tells me in private that it is justified For purely political reasons many have admitted to me in private that they would publicly oppose The often intense but jovial northwestern Louisiana conservative frankly stated: am in favor of the increase and I feel that I can justify it So congressmen's salaries went from 342500 in 1975 to $44625 and this month jumped to 357500 Will gongressmen take no action this fall and allow those salaries to go up another $373750? The 312875 increase this month is more than the average Louisianian makes in a year I learned more about the big dust storms in the Oklahoma panhandle when a close friend of mine that I met in later years while in the service told me what it was like to live in the middle of them Mel Southern lived on a wheat farm with his mother and grandfather and described to me how the sand piled up against barns and buildings like snowbanks do during winter in the northern states Though it was rough and Mel's family saw some rough times in addition to the hardships of the depression he said they were among the few lucky ones that managed to stick it out and didn't have to pack up and leave There was a large migration of Oklahoma farmers as a result of those storms most of them going to southern California Meanwhile back here we felt the results of it in a smaller way There were days when we couldn't see the sun and it wasn't unusual to feel gritty sand on your teeth I hope the conservation measures taken by the government since don't let it get that bad on any one again While Mel was telling me about what dust storms were like I could tell him what flooding was like I guess that was one of our favorite past times discussing the dry weather in Oklahoma and the wet weather of Louisiana It's the flooding in Louisiana that concerns us here more than dust in the air This year seems to be confusing from the reports we are getting from government officials as they try to guess ahead of time in store for us Col Gerald Galloway's report seemed the most reliable I've heard when he said he didn't expect a flood here this year but wouldn't predict one way or the other what the weather would do Then along comes an official of HUD during a meeting in Monroe recently and predicts there will be flooding in Catahoula Concordia and Tensas Parishes this year It's typical government procedure for agencies such as that to make statements out of their field when the Corps of Engineers say our rivers are lower for this time of the year than they have been in 50 years HUD officials should follow Col example and not attempt to predict what will happen this far ahead and if anyone would be in a position to predict flooding it should be the Corps of Engineers Yet that statement made in Monroe has caused some concern of some local citizens I think we in this area can watch the weather and predict as well as anyone what's in store I don't put much stock in the IILD official's predictions The Catahoula News-Booster is the official Journal of the Town of Jones-villo Village of Harrisonburg Village of Sicily Island Catahoula Parish School Board Catahoula Parish Police Jury and Tensas Parish Levee Board Postmaster: Send form 3579 to Box 188 Joncsville Iouisiana 71343 Second rlass postage paid at Joncsville Iouisinna Samuel A Hanna Publisher RT lionnctlc Managing Editor Freedom has limitations By Kenneth Allen House voted to adjourn and therefore sidestep a vote on raising salaries by the 312 000-plus figure for top-level government employees including federal judges Cabinet members the Vice-President our two former Presidents and the 535 members of Congress The Senate was just as backboneless It recessed after tabling a resolution which would have disapproved the pay hike thereby avoiding an on-the-record vote Sen Bennett Johnston in a television interview aired there at home last weekend sprewed forth rhetoric characteristic of the demo-gogery many in the Senate used to justify their vote to table the resolution and avoid a stand Sen James Allen a conservative Democrat from Alabama wanted the Senate to block the pay raises but his resolution was tabled Sen Johnston was among those who voted to table Why? "First of Sen Johnston told his TV audience "because Sen Allen was trying to attach it on a committee reform resolution that would transfer to my committee on energy and natural resources all the jurisdiction over natural gas over regulation of oil prices over most energy matters and it seemed to me that to try to put a pay raise resolution on to that resolution would be the surest way to kill that committee In the middle of all that gobbledy-gook Sen Johnston announced that he "frankly" know how he would have voted on the pay increase Sen Russell Long who is quick to issue press releases on money for Ft Polk and river and flood projects and revenue sharing funds for sheriffs has not issued a comment on the pay raise Sen Long however isn't the only member of the Louisiana delegation who has maintained a low profile on the subject First District Rep Richard A Tonry Second District Rep Taxpayers who get a chance to become enraged by inaction here in Washington which led to a 312875 pay raise for each member of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation feel that there is no tomorrow Former President's Ford's proposed Fiscal Year 1978 budget contained money for members of Congress to get another $373750 this fall All Congress has to do again is nothing and it adds a 65 percent comperability increase to its pay-checks President Carter has not taken action on what his predecessor had planned It was two weeks ago that the In a sense Larry Flynt is a throwback from those days of yellow journalism He found a market with his publication and he exploited it for a profit another right guaranteed each American It mattered little to him whether the moral fiber of the nation was endangered by the venom in his pen Larry Flynt was entitled to the same rights that every publisher can exercise Along the way he failed to see where responsibility went with these rights He used his medium to abase and degrade innocent all the time hiding behind the cloak of the Bill of Rights The First Amendment became a rallying board for Larry Flynt as it has been for many others like him It protects men like him like it does journalists of reputable character H's a shame that Larry Flynt and oiher smut pushers respect the Firs! Amendment as much as it does I hem The conviction of Larry Flynt publisher and editor of Hustler magazine again raises the question of the legal limitations of freedom of the published word is a crime but it isn't to write about it" he said following his Cincinnati trial isn't a crime but it is to write about it" Sadly some truth lurks behind Flynt's valediction All too often the terms freedom of the press and freedom of speech are viewed only in their strictest the right to print or say whatever whenever about whomever The men who penned the Bill of Rights had a definite reason for assuring the right of every individual access to the uncensored truth To forbid the free flow of information is to enslave a nation's people Their progenitors had immigrated to this nation from lands where the freedom of information was denied by the government.